JK's TheatreScene: Broadway Who's Who: Priscilla Lopez

Monday, November 27, 2023

Broadway Who's Who: Priscilla Lopez

An actor with a nearly 60 year Broadway career, our latest honoree is probably significant for different reasons to theater fans depending upon when Priscilla Lopez came into their theater-going lives. Early 2000s fans probably identify with her as Nina's mother in In the Heights, or more recently as Berthe in the revival of Pippin. If you were new to Broadway in the 80s, you might have caught her Tony-winning turn in A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine, or as a replacement in Nine. Through the years, she's been a steady presence on the New York stage in plays as varied as Extremities with Farrah Fawcett, Anna in the Tropics and recently in The Skin of Our Teeth and Grand Horizons. She also has amassed nearly 70 IMDb credits including theater-fan films like Center Stage, Ratatouille: The Tik Tok Musical and Theater Camp. But for most Broadway fans, it was her star-making role as Diana in A Chorus Line, making "Nothing" and "What I Did For Love" instant and enduring Broadway classic songs. These days, she's giving an amazing performance in the off-Broadway musical, The Gardens of Anuncia.

Broadway Who's Who:

Priscilla Lopez

DID YOU KNOW?

BORN: February 26 in The Bronx, New York
FAMILY: married to Broadway musician Vincent Fanuele; they have 2 children
EDUCATION: New York's famed High School for the Performing Arts
FUN FACT: she's the aunt of playwright and film director Matthew Lopez (The Inheritance, Red, White and Royal Blue)

Select Off-Broadway Credits:

Extremities - 1983; Westside Arts Theatre

The Gardens of Anuncia - 2023; Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre at Lincoln Center; as Older Anuncia

Select Broadway Credits:

She was supposed to make her debut in the ill-fated Richard Chamberlin/Mary Tyler Moore musical, Breakfast at Tiffany's, but did make it in the almost as ill-fated Henry, Sweet Henry. But she earned a measure of acclaim as the replacement for the role of Kathy in the original production of Company, followed by a stint as Fastrada in the original Pippin. Then came...